Spider-Man: Homecoming Casts Michael Chernus as The Tinkerer

With there already being five Spider-Man movies released between Sam Raimi’s original trilogy and the more recent Amazing Spider-Man movies, the wisecracking webslinger’s biggest nemeses have mostly been covered by this point. Audiences have gotten three versions of Green Goblin, plus big-screen versions of Doctor Octopus, Venom, Sandman, Rhino, and Electro. With the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming, one question has been whether the movie will revisit one or more of those same villains or introduce some new ones to moviegoers.

One villain recently confirmed for the movie after months of speculation is Michael Keaton as Vulture, a major Spider-Man foe in the comics who had yet to make it to the big screen. Rare is the modern superhero movie that only features one supervillain, though, and now it is confirmed that Vulture won’t be the only baddie that Peter Parker goes up against in his newest outing.

Deadlinereports that Orange is the New Black‘s Michael Chernus has been cast in the film as Phineas Mason, a.k.a. The Tinkerer. Chernus’s other film credits include Captain Phillips, Aloha, and The Bourne Legacy. He is also doubling down on Netflix with a major role in the streaming service’s upcoming The Most Hated Woman in America, a drama about the landmark Murray v. Curlett Supreme Court case in which school-sponsored Bible readings were declared unconstitutional.

In the comics, The Tinkerer is a sort of MacGyver gone wrong, a brilliant inventor with the ability to put together gadgets out of little more than household spare parts. Instead of using those powers for good as MacGyver would have, The Tinkerer uses them toward more nefarious ends. One of those ends, naturally, is defeating Spider-Man.

Far from acting on his own, though, The Tinkerer has aided a number of Spider-Man’s other foes over the years by building things for them as well, including Mysterio’s suit and Scorpion’s tail. This means he could be an ancillary character in the movie, either helping create gadgets for main villain Vulture or assisting an entirely different, unannounced villain. Mysterio in particular would be an interesting addition to the roster of big-screen Spider-Man supervillains.

Will Spider-Man: Homecoming be limited to the two villains announced so far, or are there more to come? It seems likely that at least one or two more villains will make an appearance, even if it’s just in a cameo leading up to a bigger part in Homecoming‘s eventual sequel. If not, Peter Parker and Tony Stark will still be meeting their match as far as gadget-making geniuses go.